Charlie Jones once said, “Who you will be five years from now will be determined by the books that you read and the people you choose to associate with.”
My uncle, Stan Hazlewood, was a huge influence on me early in my life. I lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and worked for him.
He gave me books to read.
My aunt, Nancy Hazlewood (Stan’s wife) would later tell me that he gave me books to read that he’d not even read.
He simply knew that (1) I’d go read them, and (2) they were great books.
I didn’t just read them. I devoured them just as I did with the Bible some years later.
I wonder today why I don’t fit in with any political mindset of either political party in America.
It would be easier for me to just follow this one or that one. I could become one of ‘them’ (whoever ‘them’ may be).
But, it’s just not in my soul to sell out to any politician or political party.
What Charlie Jones said explains why I think and feel the way that I do today.
One of the great books that Stan had me to read was a compilation of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s works.
Here’s a sample of Emerson’s writing that explains part of why I feel and think the way that I do.
In his essay, ‘Self-Reliance’, he said, “A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if everything were titular and ephemeral but the first step in his own thought. The entire circle of his actions may be viewed in the light of this truth: his life, whether his actions or his thoughts, must be based on the realization of his own uniqueness. But to believe that the politics and other external leaders should determine one’s actions or thoughts is to abandon self-reliance.”
In tandem with other great writers like C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaefer, whose writings I studied in college (I also took a class in Emerson’s writings), my inner world was shaped.
Emerson was a deist and not a traditional Christian.
I was taught in college (a Christian college) to consider Emerson’s philosophy and draw from it what I felt beneficial.
Thankfully, my Christian professors didn’t fear Emerson’s deism.
I didn’t set out to prove Charlie Jones’ assertion, but I did find that it was valid.
My takeaway was (1) be a reader (2) find what resonates with your soul and adopt it to whatever degree that it serves you best.
In doing this and being in the presence of great people (which I have been much of my life) has landed me in the state of mind I’m now in.
Michael Murphy is a Sherman, Texas native and retired minister who lives in Zhengzhou, China where he teaches English.